Shopping for the Garden

Spent part of both yesterday and today shopping for the garden. Mother and I had a "girls day out" yesterday and ended it by shopping for plants for both our gardens, which are very different. If you have been following It's My Garden you have figured out that we have more square feet in garden than in grass - Mitchell keeps suggesting new spots for flowering plants! But Mother's situation is quite different. She lives in an apartment in a retirement village and has only a balcony for growing space. She keeps a dozen or so orchids - phals, paphs, and oncidiums mostly - so that she has something in bloom about 10 months a year, but has settled on a large planter on the balcony for her outdoor garden.

She once did cymbidiums, major climbing plants up the porch railing and posts, as well as summer annuals and a few veggies, but now finds that to be too much work, so she has planted a combination of tomatoes and perennials to give her some summer color and a tomato sandwich or two. I took her a mini-rose yesterday as part of her Mother's Day gift. It was a deep, but pale, pink. I knew she already had a cerise mini-rose and thought they would look good together. She also has two mini-daylilies. One is "Happy Returns" and the other is a "red" whose name escapes me - if I ever knew. They are both rebloomers so she gets plenty of blooms all summer.

She has a major Big Box store nearby that has a wonderful garden center, so we ended our day of shopping there. The tomato was pretty easy, since she likes Big Girl. Flowers took a lot longer. We looked at lots of things and ended up with a mini-dalia for her [the rest of her Mother's Day] and a lovely red mandavilla for Mitchell and me - her anniversary gift to us. But I found the prices impossible to ignore and also brought home three campanulas [purple, of course, for the river] and a pretty evening primrose, which is pale pink. It will make a nice accent along the river. Mitchell was a bit appalled when I show up with a car filled with plants - mainly, I think, because it was his car!

Today he and I went garden shopping with different goals. Since we cut down the arborvitae last week at the corner of the front porch, we wanted to get some replacement shrubs so that I can get started with the re-do on that corner. I had wanted some dwarf Indian Hawthorn, but could not find them so we chose a holly that will go about three feet tall by five feet wide. It has a loose growth habit and tiny leaves, and it will only take two to fill the space. I also bought several clematis - two to grow over the stump we just put in the back, one for a trellis in the back corner, and one to grow up the porch railing on the front porch.

We also stopped at the Big Box ourselves. I was so encouraged by the prices I saw yesterday at Mother's store that I wanted to see if I could get some more deals for myself. And, I did. With the oak tree gone in the front, it looks very bare. We decided that we wanted to put a large planter on the tree stump to pull in some color once the azaleas are gone. I found a large plastic pot that looks like terra cotta and was big enough to show up. I filled it with flowering annuals - Gerbera daisies, snapdragons, and other summer flowers. It is supposed to rain tonight, so we hope get the planter watered in well and place it tomorrow. I will probably need to be leveled, so I will need Mitchell's help moving it.

What's blooming today? Two nice surprises. First, some gorgeous pink Dutch iris. Mother gave them to me several years ago for Christmas, but they have finally come into their own. They are the largest iris blooms I have ever had and a nice clear pink. Secondly, a "red" yucca. It has variegated foliage and has begun to put up a "spike" that is a medium pink color. It has never bloomed before, so we don't exactly know what to expect, but this is clearly the beginning of blooms. Will keep you posted.